Was shooting in Sacramento’s Meadowview neighborhood TikTok challenge gone wrong?
By Tori Apodaca, Madisen Keavy
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SACRAMENTO, California (KOVR) — Five people, including a teen, were shot outside a south Sacramento apartment complex on Monday. Everyone is expected to survive.
It happened outside an apartment complex along Coral Gables Court in the Meadowview neighborhood. People living in that area told CBS13 that this does not come as a shock, with many feeling desensitized to this type of violence.
“To be honest, no one’s afraid,” said Mac Milo, whose family lives nearby.
Milo believes the people involved did not think about the consequences before pulling the trigger.
“It’s like any other place in America,” he said. “It’s the ghetto.”
Multiple neighbors said a fight broke out after a group of kids were playing with water pellet guns, better known as Orbeez guns. This is a trend that took TikTok by storm a few years back.
“If we’re going to allow our kids to have that kind of fun and we’re not going to put parameters on it, it could turn deadly,” said Berry Accius, a community advocate and founder of Voice of Youth.
Neighbors said it went from fun to a fight to real gunshots.
“My mom got hit. My niece got hit,” said Veronica Broadway, who shared her concerns in the aftermath of the shooting with CBS13.
Broadway spoke to CBS13 Tuesday night and said the scuffle got serious real fast.
“It got a little rough. They’re teenagers. They’re always fighting out here. There was no reason for a man to bring a gun,” she said.
The Sacramento Police Department said it cannot confirm anything Broadway or others say they witnessed, but a neighbor showed us the shell casings from the Orbeez not far from the crime scene. Left behind were orange remnants that resembled water balloons.
“We’ve seen this before,” Accius said. “What are we going to do differently moving forward?”
Accius said prevention starts with programs to keep kids busy. That is why he is actively showing kids in neighborhoods like this the future they can have by taking them on college tours or having them learn a new skill.
He said things like that are crucial now because there is sometimes a slight uptick in crime in the summer months among youth since they are not keeping busy in school.
“Some of the most innocent things become violent and it becomes aggressive and it becomes deadly, and this could have been one of these moments,” Accius said.
On Wednesday, Sacramento police announced that they had identified one of the people who was taken to the hospital as a potential suspect in the shooting. That person, 23-year-old Sacramento resident Jayovanni Head, will be booked into jail on felony assault-related charges once he’s medically cleared.
As of Tuesday night, a spokesperson for the Sacramento Police Department told CBS13 they are asking anyone with information to report it at (916) 808-5471 or they can submit tips anonymously through the P3tips app.
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